An Assessment of Presentation Slide Quality at a National Hand Surgery Meeting

Effective information transfer relies on the proper use of educational tools. Evaluating the quality of presentations permits us to improve educational materials in plastic surgery. The authors' aims were to assess the quality of presentations at a national hand surgery meeting, using a checklist of presentation standards from the literature, and to identify areas of improvement.

The study sample included presentations from the clinical papers sessions at the 2020 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. A modified checklist based on the literature was used to assess the presentations. Two members of the research team extracted data from the included presentations, and disagreements were reviewed collaboratively.

A total of 96 presentations were included in this sample. The mean number of deficiencies per slide set was approximately 9. Misused graphics, ambiguous content (eg, undefined abbreviations, undefined symbols), and overdetermined slides were the most common deficiencies identified in the sample. One-way analysis of variance of presenter role found a significant difference in the mean number of deficiencies ( F2,93 = 7.36; P = 0.001) among different types of presenters, with surgeon presenters exhibiting more deficiencies than students and other health care professionals.

The use of a checklist to evaluate a presentation helps cultivate more effective presentations in national meetings. A collaborative peer-review process, incorporating feedback from multiple trainees, audience members, and colleagues, facilitates effective information transfer through presentations.